Prime Time: Spaceballs (1987)

There was some recent news that put Spaceballs at the forefront of my mind. First of all, we're apparently getting a sequel. Second, Mel Brooks just turned 99 a few days ago. Both of these things reminded me that it had been too long since I last watched Spaceballs, despite owning it on both disc and digital form for some time.

Everyone should know about this by now. It's spoofing a very famous sci-fi franchise (hence the sequel, now there are so many other moments to mine comedy from). Bill Pullman is the reluctant hero, Lone Starr, travelling through space with his furry companion, Barf (John Candy). With a large debt hanging over their heads, the two end up incentivised to rescue Princess Vespa (Dapne Zuniga) and her metallic handmaid, Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers). That leads to them all trying to stay one step ahead from the powerful and dangerous Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis).

Directed by Brooks, who also co-wrote the thing with Thomas Meehan and Ronny Graham (the latter giving himself one of the best scenes in which he plays a minister), Spaceballs benefits from a great cast that includes those already mentioned, including Brooks himself in a couple of different roles, and Dick Van Patten, George Wyner (superb as Colonel Sandurz), Michael Winslow aka the human sound machine. There's also room for very brief turns from Stephen Tobolowsky, John Hurt, Rhonda Shear, Rick Ducommun, an unrecognisable Dom DeLuise as Pizza The Hutt, and a few other familiar names.

I still have a soft spot for Spaceballs, mainly thanks to Pullman and co. in the lead roles, but most people would admit that it's far from top-tier comedy from Brooks. It's time, however, to be a bit more honest about how far it is from his best work. Spaceballs isn't that good. The jokes are more miss than hit, although they work on an eye-rolling "dad joke" level, the thin plot feels exactly like what it is (an excuse for the gags), and some of the makeup and effects are absolutely awful. This is the start of Brooks spoofing something because it is popular, as opposed to the masterpieces he crafted when spoofing movies that he appeared to have genuine affection for.

There are good moments here and there (anything with Rick Moranis is usually good enough to make viewers smile, and the gags that reference Alien and Planet Of The Apes are nicely constructed), and I defy anyone to tell me that they wouldn't enjoy spending some time in the company of 1980s Pullman, Candy, Zuniga, and Rivers. It's just a shame that nobody seemed interested in making this the best that it could be. It's sporadically amusing, but it mainly feels lazy, and if I want to watch something lazy that will also make me laugh then I'll just spend time looking at my middle-aged spread in a mirror.

I'm not going to rate it like I hate it though, because I don't. That soft spot doesn't simply disappear because a rewatch has reminded me of so many negatives. It's sustained by small pleasures as simple as Candy wagging his tail in excitement or a literal display of radar being jammed.

6/10

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High Anxiety (1977)

It's another top class spoof from Mel Brooks, this time taking aim at the movies of Alfred Hitchcock, and while I enjoyed many individual moments (the riff on The Birds is juvenile but also damn funny) I didn't feel that the whole thing worked as well as it could, or should, have.

The biggest plot developments, and indeed the title itself, are derived from Vertigo - the film that, despite stiff competition, just edges ahead of the pack to remain Hitchcock's finest hour. Mel Brooks plays Richard H. Thorndyke, a man who is appointed as the new administrator for the Psychoneurotic Institute For The Very Very Nervous. There's something not quite right at the institute, something that Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman) and Dr. Charles Montague (Harvey Korman) seem to be covering up. Maybe it's to do with a patient named Arthur Brisbane (Albert Whitlock), a man kept there despite him being in fine physical and mental health according to his daughter, Victoria (Madeline Kahn).

Written by Brooks, as well as Ron Clark, Barry Levinson and Rudy De Luca, the film lacks the gag quotient of, say, Blazing Saddles while the references to the original movies aren't always as immediately recognisable as they are in Young Frankenstein. Having said that, there are plenty of details and little touches that will please fans of Hitchcock even if they aren't always played for laughs.

The performances are all pretty good, in line with the material, but the best moments come from the fantastic Cloris Leachman and the equally fantastic Harvey Korman. In fact, the very best moments feature both stars bouncing off one another and wringing the maximum amount of laughs from each line.

Okay, so comparing this movie to Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein is probably quite unfair because they are two of the best spoofs ever made so I should make it clear that High Anxiety certainly rewards attentive viewers and will undoubtedly be a film that I return to now and again for some guaranteed chuckles.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mel-Brooks-Collection-DVD/dp/B000AM6NCM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348995965&sr=8-2